


Night

by cloverlady



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hospitals, hospital mention, piano playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 04:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18771028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverlady/pseuds/cloverlady
Summary: Noelle falls asleep in the hospital. When she wakes up, she hears a strange noise in the dark.





	Night

**Author's Note:**

> I felt gloomy and tired when I wrote this. That's probably why it turned out like it did. Still, I think it's a good little story, worth posting at least.

When Noelle opened her eyes, she was still sitting in the hospital chair. Her arms propped up on the waxy wooden armrests, back sore from leaning into the leather seat. 

Outside the window, everything was blue-black, still and quiet. Not a gentle breeze or a star to speak of. Darkness loomed over the room, seeping in from the ceiling and pooling at the far corners. A halo of light from the medical monitors fell on her father, the tracing green lines illuminating his sleeping face. The nurse must have turned the beeping noises off, or perhaps they turned themselves off at night. As Noelle sat there in the dark, nothing interrupted the sleeping silence that had fallen over the hospital.

Until something did.

The noise was faint. Gentle. She could barely register it, or what it even was, but it was there, tickling at the edges of her hearing.

Noelle had to peel her cheek off of her hand as she came back to life from how hard she'd been leaning into it. As she leaned forward in the chair, the noise became no clearer. If she wanted peace, she'd have to go investigate.

She hesitated to get up, twitching when the leather seat creaked as she stood and outright wincing at the little clicking noises her hooves made on the tiles. Normally reflecting the white fluorescence of hospital lights, they had become a darkly shimmering pool.

Noelle turned the handle of the door, placing a hand on the frame to quiet the sound as gently as possible. It felt as though the quiet was a reverent, stifling thing that she had to do her best not to burst- and that this noise was disturbing that unspoken rule, and therefore worth investigation.

The hallway was equally dim. She would have thought the power was out if not for the gentle thrum of the A/C whispering against her antlers.

As Noelle leaned out into the hall, the noise became a little clearer. 

Piano. 

The soft roll of piano notes was what was poking at the silence. As she crossed the reflective void of floor, Noelle wondered who could be playing piano at this hour. She wasn't quite sure what hour it was, but surely it was a sacrilegious hour to be making anything but whispers.  
The door to the lobby was also closed, and Noelle wasn't so careful in opening it. The laws of silence were already being shattered with every feathery note.

The lobby was lit by the street lamps outside, the light mellow as it trickled in, noninvasive. Outside, they briefly highlighted a piece of the hospital lawn, a puddle of stark and verdant green against the black night. The chairs cast nebulous shadows on the tile floor and the piano kept playing.

The notes slowed. Noelle turned her head away from the mesmerizing subtleties of the hospital windows to look at the musician.

Kris was staring back at her. Their eyes invisible in shadow, the rest of them starkly highlighted by a pale, sharp light, stray hairs invisible in the darkness highlighted in their ragged glory.

"I'm dreaming." Noelle blurted out, finally understanding, because why else would Kris Dreemurr be in a hospital at the witching hour playing the waiting room piano in total darkness.

Kris considered her, and then leaned forward and got back into the swing of the melody, fingers eased onto the keys, ready to strike.

"If you were dreaming," Kris's voice was a gentle rasp, "this thing would be tuned right."

They played what sounded like the finale of their melody, paused to breathe, and then stood up. Facing her, they jerked their head towards the door. Noelle obliged and followed. Even if she wasn't dreaming, it was best to just go with the flow of things, especially when in unfamiliar territory as she was.

The outside was as still as the inside. Not warm and not cold. Streetlamps cast small and stark shelters of light on the sidewalk. Noelle spent a few moments watching a moth dance desperately beneath one bulb before she realized Kris was in front of her. She hastened to catch up.

Noelle had never seen Hometown so late. She should have been afraid, but she was excited instead, to be awake when everything else was asleep.

And Kris seemed to know, at least a little, what they were doing. They did not converse as they walked, and the walk was short. Kris guided Noelle to the iron gate that marked the way to her home. Out here, there was no light but the moon, a cat's grin of a moon, barely lighting anything.

It did light the look Kris gave her, a soft, misty glow that highlighted the expression they presented. 

There was something odd in that stare. An emotion she did not know how or was too tired to describe. An emotion that, she realized, permeated this entire journey she had undertaken, or rather her lack of ability to describe just how it all made her feel.

And then Kris was gone, a shadow melting into the rest of the night, becoming lines, becoming nothing. There was no proof that they’d ever even been beside her.

The wrought iron felt rough and strange under Noelle's hands as she pushed the gate open. When she got home, she would go to sleep, and the world would slide back into place. Seeing it so topsy turvy and strange, like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, was enjoyable. But she didn't belong here. The night was uninterested in her observance, but it did not have a place for her either. Unlike it apparently had for Kris.

Kris could keep their song-laden nights, and Noelle would keep her bright cheery days, and that would be fine.


End file.
